(no subject)

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Lesgle and Bahorel had parted with an unspoken understanding that they needed some time apart to wash up and eat a decent meal and put on a fresh shirt and not see one another's annoying face after being locked up in the same room for 24 hours. At least, that was Lesgle's understanding. He's just assuming Bahorel feels the same.

Naturally, "some time apart" doesn't have to mean more than a few hours. It's not long before Lesgle's mood is restored by the company of kittens and Joly, and from there it's not long before he and Joly are putting on a pot of coffee (and pulling out a bottle of wine) in preparation for a little Amis meeting.

Comments

[clayforthedevil]

Hey now, if Bahorel can't even annoy a dear friend over the course of a full day, what is he supposed to do with his afterlife? He shows up with a bottle of something that smells of alcohol and apples (well, mostly apples) and with bells on-- or anyway with bells on a strap, for the kittens.

[le_centre]

Courfeyrac's along on the heels of him, bearing a few bottles of good red wine and a large platter of cheese and meat. He was just about to start eating it when the rat came along with the message from Bossuet, so why not share?

He forgets all about it when he enters the room, because this is the first time he's seen this room, and -

'...Bossuet, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. How does it not give you nightmares?'

He stares around until his gaze catches on a cherub, and remains there.

'Still, I'll admit to a certain level of envy.'

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Bossuet wraps him in a quick greeting hug. "Envy? Why, Courfeyrac, if you only ask at the Bar, you too can have a room of such splendor as this. Or more splendor. Joly, I would say that some of those others had more splendor, wouldn't you?" If splendor is the word for...whatever those rooms have. Bossuet too gazes at the cherub. "That one's Victor. And, let me think, have you seen the kittens? --And did you know Bahorel was here now? You both should look into taking elegant new rooms."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly grins. "Oh yes, I've already promised Bahorel to show him some of the rooms, as soon as we've gotten permission from the Bar. There's a few rooms we found that are just perfect for him, don't you think, Bossuet?" That is, sadly, not a joke. A cave with red leather furnishings shouldn't be perfect for anyone, but there's Bahorel. " And I'm sure we can find something remarkable for you, Courfeyrac."

Certainly he and Bossuet had had some Remarks about those rooms.

[le_centre]

'I am not sure elegant is the right word, Bossuet.'

Very many others spring to mind. Gaudy. Outrageous. Awful. And yet, he is envious.

He deposits his wine and cheese on the nearest flat surface, and braves his gaze upon the room again.

'Mine is quite bland by comparison - well, what wouldn't be? - but it does have very many modern things in it. I don't understand a single one, but they are there nonetheless.'

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Well, he didn't want to say outright it looks like something from a very puzzling sort of brothel. But gaudy, outrageous, and awful would all also be correct.

Bossuet has a mouth full of cheese and coldcuts, having helped himself the moment Courfeyrac put the plate down, so his first response is just an enthusiastic nod until he can swallow. "--Yes! I still feel a little thrill when I fill up a bath of hot water. Marvelous. So, ah--if you missed the news, Bahorel and I spent the night, and rather more of the day than was strictly necessary, shut up in cells after a disagreement with a security officer."

[le_centre]

'Oh?'

He flings himself on something that is probably a couch, but who can tell with furnishings like this?

'Well, I am not in the least surprised. My congratulations, friends! The first among us, I believe, to fall foul of the authorities!'

So proud.

'Whatever did you do to earn it? I am very sorry I missed it.'

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Well, ah. I may have made an improper insinuation about the officer, and then Bahorel arrived, but that's starting the story in the middle..."

Lesgle rubs the back of his neck. "I became acquainted with Gene Hunt when I had to ask questions about the--the Hannibal Lecter business. The good officer has opinions about women, politics, poncey French buggers, and probably everything else."

[le_centre]

'...ah.'

Really, nothing else needs to be said. A person with Opinions - and a policeman, no less - plus Bossuet, plus Bahorel, equals a fight. It is the simplest equation in the world.

'I imagine he isn't dead, or the two of you would likely not be standing here.'

His tone is regretful. He really is very sorry he missed it.

[clayforthedevil]

"He may be dead, it seems quite the popular option. If so, he does not know how to manage it with any style.I am sure there were will be future demonstrations of Officer Hunt's official skills. I shall give you tickets to the next performance, if you like." Bahorel's assessment of the legal situation in the bar is punctuated by the jingling of bells as orchestrated by kitten attack.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Bahorel was in excellent form. An encore would be a delight." Ah--hm--that is-- Bossuet glances at Joly, who might have a different opinion. "--But the man hit him with the butt of a pistol."

[pro_patria_mortuus]

This is the point at which Enjolras arrives, without food or drinks but with a smile for all.

He seems not to notice their surroundings in the least. Having once seen the room, he no longer devotes enough thought to it to be disconcerted; a rare gift, given the particulars of this room, and not necessarily an entirely laudable one, but Enjolras's nature.

Greetings accomplished, he settles himself on the couch next to Courfeyrac. There's room for a third next to him; Bossuet and Joly's rooms are well supplied for gatherings. (Habit, entirely unnoticed, to leave the space free.)

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles a greeting to Enjolras, then frowns, although not at anyone in the room. "I suppose it's ridiculous to question Hunt carrying his gun when Teja's got his axe and we have people who can fly and --and maybe gods, on Security. But that's the sort of thing that can cause real damage to people. I mean, alive people; I'm still not sure what differences may apply to us, now."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"An axe isn't so likely as a gun to catch some unfortunate passer-by. But that's a fair point; the Security men here are an oddly mixed collection, for an oddly mixed place with oddly mixed needs."

Lesgle perches on the foot of the foot of his and Joly's bed, facing Courfeyrac and Enolras, and rubs his face. "I know I'll astonish you all when I say I personally dislike the man Hunt. If it had been someone else exchanging words with--Teja, say, whom I do not personally dislike--and Teja had shut that someone-else up overnight, I don't know how much moral outrage I would feel."

That is to say, he's not sure he's the best judge of the situation here. But he thinks it bothers him on a level beyond personal grievance. "--Enjolras, you've been here longer than any of us. Are any of the men on Security steady residents of this place, besides Teja?"

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel, currently encouraging Tarsal to kill, girl, kill! , laughs. "As for me, my conscience is clear; I've never met the man before, and should have treated him the same in any case." Bahorel will absolutely get into a brawl with a friend,especially if that friend has the supreme bad sense to be a policeman. "But it does sound like some of our guards here are beyond things like an honest brawl with humans."

He notices the seat left empty on the couch, without comment. Some of them are missing; that will right itself, or not.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Laigle has noticed the empty space as well. He's not sure if Enjolras does, or does not: either way, he's not going to say anything.

"Ye-es, Bahorel, you may find yourself gravely outmatched at some point, with gods scattered here and there, and monsters, and people with--motorcycles and flying carpets and alien hounds. Well! It's the old thing, there are dangerous people and so we have police, and so the police see a fight in every person they pass."

Which in Bahorel's case may not be a mistake, mind. "--Are you training up a force of guard kittens?"

[clayforthedevil]

Bahorel snorts. He doesn't choose his fights based on whether he'll win. But it's good to know. "And yet Officer Hunt considered us a threat to the peace. I feel quite honored.-- There would be worse allies in a fight than these house tigers, eh?" He holds up his arm, currently covered with very intent kittens valiantly trying to get through the wool of his coat-sleeve.

[le_centre]

Courfeyrac snorts too, sprawled inelegantly next to Enjolras.

'You are a threat to the peace, Bahorel. Any peace, anywhere. But it's only certain people who take objection to that.'

Chief among them: the police. But he also feels bound to ask, 'did you provoke him? I sincerely hope so, and feel it should not matter in any case - if he is here to guard the place and stop wrongdoing, he should not be swayed by provocation - but if you did, he will undoubtedly use it as a defence if questioned on it.'

Then again, there is provocation, and provocation. Exchanging words in a bar is nothing compared to poking at a government with rifles, and he would expect retaliation at the latter. The former, not so much.

[pro_patria_mortuus]

(He hasn't noticed the space, not really. But he also wouldn't object in the slightest to it being filled by someone else, and Enjolras isn't a man given to sprawling across couches in any case. It's only that it's habit, long established before Milliways and too newly applicable within it for that habit to change, to expect gatherings of eight or nine particular presences.)

Enjolras has been thinking over Bossuet's question. He shakes his head, less negation than I'm not sure, and speaks over the banter and noises of kitten ferocity.

"Residents? It's hard to say. Teja is the only one I know of who does, but there's no public roster. Those on Security are marked by a star-shaped badge they wear on duty, that's all. A few I've seen come and go, and others I may not have met at all. This place is strange that way; time runs with some peculiarity, it's difficult to know all the clientele the way one would at home." This is mostly for Bahorel, because the rest of them already know.

"The head of Security, I'm told, is a woman named Mel Fray. I haven't met her."

He's kind of dubious about a woman being in charge of Security forces, and being heeded by men like Hunt, but presumably to be given the job she's extraordinary. And there are those who would make the argument that a woman's softening influence is useful in such a system. (Once again, the narration would like to apologize for the 19th century in general and Enjolras in specific.)

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"The conversation was provocative all around," Bossuet says drily, in answer to Courfeyrac's question. "He was not unprovoked. If he were any ordinary fellow at a café I'd say he could have taken a swing at me, let alone at Bahorel, and had a fair argument in his favor. But an ordinary fellow at a café doesn't carry a pistol and fetters and can't lock his barmates in a cell for as long as suits his mood."

This is all old ground for everyone here, of course. Lesgle leans over and stretches a long arm to snag one of the bottles of wine and a glass. "In all practicality, though--what does one do? What would one like to see from Security? I don't like that the membership, jurisdiction, and oversight of Security are so opaque to the people who live here. Or, ah. Are dead here. And I don't like that so many of the Security men...or...women?...are strangers to the people who live here."

Or are dead here.

"But that's in the nature of the place."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly rubs his nose, thinking. "Everything about the running of this place is a bit mysterious. Bar arranges for all our needs, somehow; forests move, somehow. I'm not going to ignore that, but I accept that I don't understand it for now. Security, though- matters of civil governance-- that should be more transparent."
He gathers the kittens off Bahorel's arm as they change from fierce attack beasts to napping fluffballs. "There's this, that's different from home- we do know some of the security forces here. We can ask Teja how they're arranged; and maybe others of the staff, too. Even if they don't tell us what they know, what they do tell us would still be worth hearing."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"I've asked, now and then." He looks down into his cup of wine, and then through the glass. "I suspect that you could ask five different Security officers what their responsibilities are and what their jurisdiction, and get five different answers. Protecting the place in case of--walking corpses or demon rabbits or mountain monsters--seems to be tolerably obvious, but the rest of it seems a bit vague. Even the walking corpses bit, when it comes to ordinary amiable walking corpses like us. --Sorry."

[clayforthedevil]

Free of kittens, Bahorel makes his own attack on the meat-and-cheese tray. There's a few things there he doesn't recognize, so he goes for them first. "If none of them agrees on what they're supposed to be doing, it might explain the security in those cells. Hunt couldn't wait to drive the rest of you out, but after that-- I tell you, it would have taken an honest man a month's wages to buy a prisoner the kind of security we had last night."

[pro_patria_mortuus]

Enjolras nods.

"It may explain the trouble, too. The rules here are sensible but very broad. The population is large for a café, small for a town, extremely varied, and often transient. The government, if one can call it that, consists of a couple of proprietors and a small Security force. It may be that the parameters and limits of their authority are as vague to them as to us, or left largely to individual discretion."

"In that case, the issue is to ensure that clear limits of behavior are delineated and enforced, or to ensure that only those of steady moral character are given authority, or both. I would advocate both. A broad mandate without checks is a perilous system, no matter the men given responsibility by it."

They all know this; they all agree on it. The flaws of such a system have been readily illustrated in the France of their own day.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Café or town? That's one of the great troubles, isn't it? My irritation with Hunt is still--with some principles added on, certainly--it's still the irritation of the respectable post-master's son who has been treated by the gendarme like a vagabond who needs to be shaken out of the café and sent on down the road. --With some added principles."

He squints into his glass of wine again and then drains it, having discovered something not very admirable about himself. Ah, hell.

"Well! Addressing the principles, as they are more interesting than the vagaries of L'aigle de Meaux. I agree, Enjolras: both lines need to be taken. As for checks on our little police-government, one place to start would be finding some way the public can effectively review the police's performance."